1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the art of information valuation and transaction, particularly to a system and method for facilitating the valuation of information and the sale of such information.
2. Background and Objects of the Present Invention
Since the introduction of the personal computer (PC) less than two decades ago, countless millions of such computers have been produced across the world, a large amount within the United States. Over the last decade these PCs have become increasingly interconnected to each other and to other such devices, e.g., mainframes, workstations and the like, via the Internet, which until recently was an arcane and primarily academic networking tool. Now, with computers becoming more and more mainstream and consumer oriented, users are demanding greater and greater functionality from their computers.
Concomitant with the technological breakthroughs facilitating the introduction of computers into the workplace and the home has been the societal shift from an Industrial Society to an Information-based Society. The storage, manipulation, transformation and transfer of information on PCs and other computers for a great variety of different applications and fields of endeavors has now become commonplace. A growing number of businesses operate solely within this informational realm.
A consequence of the Information Age is the accumulation of a vast repertoire of data spread across a myriad of computers worldwide, and the pace of such informational accumulation is, of course, accelerating. One difficulty in mining information from this ever-growing mountain of dispersed data, however, is that, it is stored in hundreds of different formats and thousands of variations, greatly hindering accessibility and usefulness. For example, the desired source data may be a large UNIX.TM. file in an obscure format on a remote mainframe computer and the user may want a small portion of that data appended to a pre-existing EXCEL.TM. spreadsheet on their own PC. Further, even with accessibility, the conversion of newly-acquired or legacy data in one format to another is a non-trivial endeavor, as is well understood in this art.
The technological impediments of access and conversion have thus far thwarted most data sales efforts. Nonetheless, applicants believe that this challenge will be met in the near future and the mountain of new and the currently dormant or legacy data will soon be made available, uncovering a diverse range of useful information to an equally diverse populace.
After the aforementioned technological difficulties of data access and transformation have been met and the digital (and analog) treasures unearthed, however, another and serious difficulty remains, one which the subject matter of the present application addresses: the valuation of that information. Unlike physical objects, e.g., a CD holding a computer program or song thereon, for which a value may be readily accessed or negotiated and a transaction made, intangibles, e.g., the pattern of bits comprising the digital signal representing the computer program or the song, present valuational and transactional difficulties, particularly in view of the fact that digital data may be replicated perfectly countless times.
Furthermore, with the rapid proliferation of the Internet, making information available to virtually anyone, anywhere in the world, the protection and exploitation of these informational resources will become increasingly important. Whereas protection is the realm of the intellectual property laws, exploitation will be driven by the marketplace, in which a supplier can supply a veritable inexhaustible resource subject to a potentially enormous demand. The present invention, therefore, is directed to facilitating the upcoming commoditization of information.
At present, few techniques exist for determining what to charge for any particular data and few mechanisms pertain to collecting funds on microtransactions, i.e., potentially millions of small value transactions. Currently, the principle resource for large, electronic information databases are on-line (public) database services such as Dialog Information Services, Mead Data Control (Lexis.TM./Nexis.TM. applications), Dow Jones Information Services, and the content/Internet Service Providers (ISP), such as Compuserve.TM., America Online.TM., Microsoft Network and the independent bulletin boards.
Each of the above providers, however, employ limited pricing models in valuating their data. One such model is data by the hour, i.e., the time the user spends browsing. Another is data by the byte, record, picture or other simple unit of measure. A third common model is data by subscription, i.e., a kind of "all you can download" buffet at a fixed price. Some providers utilize combinations of the above models.
In addition to the dearth of pricing models, at present there are only three popular models for the collection of money on the Internet. One is a VISA.TM./Mastercard.TM. secured transaction usually with a minimum amount of about $5-$10. Another is the aforementioned subscription or fixed fee for access and use, a form of pay-per-view. Lastly, there is an advertising model, ie., "free" access to the desired data, but subject to extensive advertisements provided with the data, the advertisers footing the bill for the service. None of these models, however, provide the capability to conveniently scale the transactions to much smaller amounts, e.g., $0.50 or less, and greater frequency, e.g., millions of transactions per day. In short, there is at present no convenient way to handle the sale of a small piece of data, e.g., a single icon, form, article, digitized picture, etc., for a small fee.
One service on the Internet, Wave Systems "Wave Interactive Network--Micro Publishing", www.wave.com, provides a hardware-based solution to the pricing of a piece of data, primarily artistic in nature, e.g., a digital image. This approach, however, is simplistic in that the price is fixed.
It is, therefore, apparent that there is a great need for a system and method for valuating a wide variety of information and conveniently selling such information.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for facilitating the valuation and sale of information on a public or private network.
It is also an object of the present invention to facilitate both the vending and purchase of information by simplifying the interface to accomplish the valuation and purchase tasks.